Wireless networks may use standards such as IEEE 802.11a/g using the Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) protocol for probabilistic access to a shared medium. When using the CSMA protocol, a device may use feedback from a receiver to determine whether another transmission is in progress before initiating a transmission. Each device must “listen” before transmitting. The device may try to detect the presence of a carrier wave from another device before attempting to transmit. If a carrier from another device is sensed, the station waits for the transmission in progress to finish before initiating its own transmission. In other words, CSMA is based on the principle “sense before transmit” or “listen before talk”. A collision may occur on the shared medium when multiple devices attempt to use the medium at the same time. A collision detection scheme may be used to improve CSMA performance by terminating a transmission as soon as a collision is detected, thus shortening the time required before a retry can be attempted. A collision avoidance scheme may be used to improve the performance of CSMA by attempting to be less “greedy” on the channel. If the channel is sensed busy before transmission, then the transmission is deferred for a “random” time interval. This reduces the probability of collisions on the channel.
The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.